Bury Labour Group

Local Election Manifesto 2014

Delivering for the people and communities of Bury Forward by Councillor Mike Connolly, Leader of the Bury Labour Group

I have pleasure in presenting the Bury Labour Group’s manifesto for 2014 - 2016

When the majority of residents gave us the honour and responsibility of running the Council in May 2011, no one could have imagined three years later the breadth and depth of the savage cuts imposed on Bury residents by this Coalition government.

During the past 3 years the revenue we receive to run services for has been cut by a staggering £37m with, I am sorry to say, even more cuts to come from government. In effect we have lost £462 per household to spend on local services.

Throughout that period our top priorities have been the protection of front-line services, job creation and those helping people less fortunate than ourselves.

We promised an open and transparent council and that’s what we did by changing the way we consult residents, re-instating public question time at Council and Cabinet meetings and reduced allowances for Councillors by 10%.

On recycling we have increased the rate from 28% to 47% responsibly with our local environment whilst saving thousands of tonnes of waste going into landfill and keeping council tax down.

We have strong and increasingly successful levels of educational attainment for our Children; for example our Secondary schools are the best performing across the whole of the North West. Something we in Bury should be justifiably proud of.

We will always look out for the vulnerable in our Borough and to support this we introduced new strategies on Housing; Community Cohesion and Fuel Poverty; along with support for local credit unions.

We have actively supported the development of a strong local economy and job creation with the launch of the Bury Business Awards to showcase local business and the focus on youth unemployment has been heightened with the launch of our Backing Young Bury scheme.

On housing we have developed a wide range of solutions including refurbishment programmes; new affordable housing in Pimhole, through to specialist accommodation such as Redbank in Radcliffe, for our elderly residents.

The lessons of our first three years in control of Bury Council are that you can always trust Labour to get the job done.

Mike Connolly Leader of the Bury Labour Group Introduction

Bury Labour:

- Reduced Councillors allowances by 10% in 2011, they will continue to be frozen at current levels
- Remains committed to ensuring that high quality services are delivered to our residents and local businesses
- Continuing to provide services and, by working in partnership with other service providers, when and where appropriate, will ensure both service quality and value for money for Bury taxpayers
- Pledges to our residents that we will always consult in a fair, open and transparent manner, taking account of all views before taking any decisions to change the way in which services are delivered
- Believes it is only right to treat everyone with fairness and respect, and to offer equality of opportunity to all people. We believe in a zero tolerance approach to any form of discrimination, bullying or harassment
- Introducing a living wage for council employees
- Promote Community Benefit in the council’s procurement to ensure that local people and communities benefit as much as possible from contracts the Council places with private companies
- Introduce a more comprehensive and joined-up council complaints system

In line with these commitments, Bury Labour will continue to support all the people within the borough through:

A Fair Deal for Bury We will continue to fight for a fair funding deal from Central Government. Currently the Council receives £381 funding per resident compared to the average £552 for Metropolitan areas.

A Pro-active Asset Management Scheme We will continue to look at innovative ways of developing our property portfolio, ensuring that the Council's assets serve the needs of our Community and are operated in the most efficient manner, delivering value for money for the Council Tax payer.

Backing Young / Apprenticeships We recognise the challenges young people and school leavers face. We will ensure through local initiatives such as ‘Backing Young Bury’ and our Apprenticeship Scheme, that young people of all abilities and backgrounds are given support to enter the jobs market.

Welfare Reform We will continue to develop initiatives locally to help the most vulnerable in our society cope with national changes to the Welfare and Benefits system, particularly by new and inventive measures such as supporting credit unions Adult and Community Services

Housing

- We are investing in our communities - with an additional £4,000,000 allocated to Six Town Housing to improve the quality of council properties across the Borough
- Bringing more empty properties back into use - working with owners and landlords to address the housing crisis and minimise the impact of the government’s welfare reform
- Helping people in fuel poverty - by giving residents the information they need to stay warm and finding innovative ways to help people keep down their energy bills
- Increasing efficiency - getting better use of our buildings thereby cutting costs, improving facilities and promoting more locality based, inter-generational work to strengthen our communities

Health and Social Care

- We are looking to integrate health and social care - working with GPs and other health professionals to keep people well in their own communities
- Looking after carers - giving every carer the right to an assessment of their needs and information on the support available to them
- Improving the health of communities by initiatives to increase vaccination rates, raise awareness and support healthier lifestyles within the community.
- Enabling and equipping communities and individuals to take responsibility for a healthier lifestyle for them and their families
- Continuing to develop and promote Bury as a Dementia Friendly Borough Environment and Green Issues

Carbon Reduction The Labour Party will continue to support local and Greater Manchester wide targets for reducing carbon emissions. We will seek to introduce initiatives to reduce the use of energy, including:

- the installation of LED lighting across the Borough to reduce energy usage, which will result in savings of over £200k a year.
- working closely with the GM Low Carbon Hub to develop new schemes and initiatives that contribute to reducing our carbon footprint.
- continuing to reduce the number of buildings we occupy, thereby reducing our energy use.
- stipulating fuel efficiency in our specifications for new vehicles and where appropriate, look at purchasing electric vehicles to ensure council vehicles are more fuel efficient.

Recycling Bury Labour is committed to increasing our recycling rate to avoid the high cost of landfill disposal and to maximise the waste we recycle. Since Labour took control we have increased recycling from 28% to 46%. We are well on our way to achieving a 50% household recycling rate and measures will be taken to get us beyond that figure.

Greenbelt The Government are setting high targets for housing. In Bury this means that Government proposals threaten the borough’s valuable greenbelt. Bury Labour Group will defend the greenbelt and do all we can to stop development of this precious resource.

Potholes We are investing over £100,000 to provide the latest equipment to help repair potholes more quickly and effectively than we’ve ever been able to do before. We will also change the way our teams work, making them much more efficient, ensure they work more intensively in areas and use technology to speed up processing job requests.

Dog fouling We will take renewed action on dog fouling across the Borough, and introduce new 'school zones' with special signage, extra bins and more patrols to ensure areas around schools are kept clear of dog mess and litter. Leisure, Culture and Tourism

Libraries We will maintain free access to Information Technology in our libraries, and furthermore we intend to introduce free Wi-Fi in libraries.

As part of Bury Labour’s Digital Inclusion Strategy we will look to also providing free Wi-Fi access in all our Council venues for the use of residents.

Parks and Open Spaces Bury is a very green borough and has many wonderful parks and open spaces. Therefore, Bury Labour is committed to:

- maintaining Green Flag status for our wonderful parks.
- retaining Bury, Ramsbottom and Radcliffe In Bloom, and extending provision to Prestwich
- expanding sponsorship opportunities for local businesses and organisations to sponsor 'In Bloom' activities
- continuing to safeguard our wonderful open spaces and keep them in council control
- expand the provision of allotments

Leisure We are committed to keeping Radcliffe Pool open, and ensuring that the necessary works are carried out to ensure it is safe

Following the success of the Olympics and the 'I Will If You Will' project, we will encourage further initiatives aimed at encouraging a healthier lifestyle and encouraging more involvement in sport and physical activity

Tourism Bury has a distinctive cultural and tourism offering, which represents a significant portion of the local economy. We will enhance and support this offering by:

- implementing a Cultural Economic Strategy as part of the overall Economic Strategy
- launching a 'Visit Bury' website to promote Bury, and encourage more visitors to the many events and attractions across the borough
- staging outstanding exhibitions, to enhance Bury's national and international reputation for arts and culture, and attract increased numbers of visitors and significant external funding Communities and Neighbourhoods

Communities Bury Labour will continue to work with and invest in community development and engagement, with the aim of creating and maintaining strong and vibrant communities in all of our townships.

Bury’s diversity is one of its strengths. Our six townships are home to numerous distinctive communities. Therefore we will:

- ensure that community cohesion is at the heart of what we do and continues to be reflected in our ambitions for Bury as a great place to live in Greater Manchester
- develop a Community Engagement framework to maximise participation from the public, voluntary and community groups to enhance work in each Township and to continue the delivery of objectives through the Township plans
- look to aid the enhancement of a Bury Third Sector that is sustainable and commit to using the Sector where appropriate to deliver frontline services
- continue to build on our Fair Trade Borough status
- introduce Community Hubs in each Township to deliver Council, Community, Public and Third Sector activity
- refocus our efforts to increase the number of volunteers within the Council and across the Borough. We must involve the Probation service and ex-offenders in this aim and look to develop a peer mentoring scheme

Community Safety Bury Labour takes public safety within our communities very seriously and is committed to doing all it can to help improve the safety of our residents. We will continue to work to keep Bury one of the safest places to live, work and visit. To do this we will:

- work with our partners in the Fire Service to reduce the risk of fires and in particular with the most vulnerable and those at greatest risk
- build safe and resilient Communities within the Borough and reduce the fear of crime
- work in collaboration with partners and the Police Commissioner to reduce the levels of Anti-Social Behaviour across the Borough
- work with the Police Commissioner to lead the way in campaigning to eradicate domestic abuse in all its manifestations Children and Families

Schools We are very proud of the achievements of our young people in our Schools. Bury Labour believes that this success is due to the strong partnerships between pupils; teachers; support staff; governors; parents and the local authority. Bury Labour will always seek ways to build on these partnerships. We will also:

- continue our opposition to forced academies
- ensure the education for our children is of the highest possible standard
- continue to campaign to abolish hate crime in schools
- provide a single point of contact for schools who commission services
- protect all education services currently provided by the local authority
- look to secure funding to start refurbishing those schools most in need

Empowerment of Young People

- We will continue to promote the voice of young people in the decision making process.
- Continue to support the Youth Cabinet and look for ways to build on that support.
- Provide an automatic place on each Township Forum for a young person.

Helping Families in Need

- We will continue to extend our service to families in need
- Invest in supporting existing and potential fostering and adoption placements
- The wellbeing of our Looked After Children will always be of paramount importance.

Children’s Centres We recognise the vital role that our Children’s Centres play within our communities and we will continue to support them and ensure adequate funding is provided. Transport

- Work with Transport for Greater Manchester to maintain and improve bus services across the Borough
- To further provide sustainable transport opportunities
- Establish a common pricing system for fares throughout Greater Manchester
- Bring about re-regulation of public transport
- Establish through booking across Greater Manchester involving all forms of transport buses, trams and rail

Planning

- Ensure that we achieve the agreed level of affordable homes in line with best practice
- Review the level of affordable home with a view to increasing it
- Ensure Planning Enforcement is maintained and improved
- Through the Core Strategy, encourage and promote new planning applications to be as carbon free as possible

Economic Development

- Position the Council to maximise opportunities to stimulate economic growth and regeneration
- Support local businesses through the current economic difficulties
- Pursue appropriate grant funding opportunities to support economic growth

Apprenticeships

- Through our Backing Young Bury initiative, we will deliver a comprehensive range of employment support including work experience, pre-employment training and apprenticeships that will appeal and are accessible to a broader range of our young people
- We won’t let a generation of young people be consigned to the scrapheap as a result of continuing savage Tory cuts HUMAN RESOURCE AND PERFORMANCE

Performance

- Bury Council is judged to be a high performing Council. Every day our employees deliver a whole range of services to our residents and businesses. Bury Labour Group is committed to the provision of high quality service for all our residents.
- We have worked hard together to establish a culture where individuals strive to perform at the highest level and are clear about what their roles are and the contribution they make to the success of the council and the lives of people in the Borough.
- We will continue to drive up the performance of all our services and make available information on service improvement, in an accessible and understandable format.

Human Resource

Our Workforce

People are at the heart of everything the Council does. Our employees are our greatest asset. Our challenge is to ensure our workforce is the right size and has engaged people with the right skills and diversity to deliver the Council’s key priorities. Our vision is to have a workforce that is increasingly:

- Competent and multi-skilled
- Highly engaged
- Proud to work for Bury Council
- Reflective of the demographic make-up of our local community as far as is possible

We aim to ensure that the people who work for us:

- Feel valued
- Share the Council’s vision, values and priorities
- Get involved in making change happen through the Plan for Change
- Know what is expected of them and how they contribute to making a difference
- Are equipped with the skills to enable the Council to be fit for purpose and the future.

Workforce planning is key to managing any reduction in employee numbers through voluntary means wherever possible.

Effective workforce planning will also help us to ensure opportunities are available for those groups or our local communities who are currently under-represented within the Council.

We need to manage effectively to ensure that knowledge is transferred from employees who leave the Council to those who remain. Employee Engagement

- As an employer, we want engaged and happy employees because they deliver their best performance. We want employees who will do their best work or “go the extra mile”. Equally, employees want jobs that are worthwhile and that inspire them.

- Furthermore, we will develop employee engagement initiatives already in place and draw up creative and responsible solutions to the needs of managers and employees.

- We will build on the support mechanisms that are currently in place within the council, aligning engagement with the health and well-being of our employees.

- We want our employees to give us open and honest feedback and to think creatively about how improvements can be made to services.

- We recognise the value of our employee groups and will continue to support and encourage the development of these groups.

- We recognise the key role that trades unions have to play and will continue to consult with them as appropriate.

Managing Employee Attendance

- In conjunction with trade unions, we will support our employees’ health and well-being by ensuring there is provision in place to prevent high levels of work-related stress.

Equality and Diversity

- We take our responsibilities under the Equality Act 2012 very seriously, but more than that, we feel it is only right to treat everyone with fairness and respect and to offer equality of opportunity to all people.

- We believe that it is vital to take a zero tolerance approach to discrimination, bullying, harassment and inappropriate language or behaviour. We are committed to tackling all these issues both within our workplace and by working with our partners in the Borough as a whole.

Training and Development

- The Council is committed to offering appropriate training and development to all our employees to ensure that they are able to give of their best. We believe we need to equip our employees to take on new or broader roles by up-skilling and developing them by offering a wide range of learning opportunities.

- We believe that it is vital that Elected Members commit themselves to development and training opportunities which will equip them for the demands of the future.